. . . FirstElement Fuel, Inc. will develop eight hydrogen refueling stations. Five of those will be located in Southern California: in Huntington Beach, Irvine, San Diego, Santa Monica, and Sherman Oaks. The remaining three will be in the San Francisco Bay Area: in Campbell, Oakland and Sunnyvale.

Air Liquide Advanced Technologies US, LLC received funds for a refueling station in Santa Nella that will connect the Southern California and the Bay Area stations. . . .

These are all sites previously chosen for grant awards under GFO 15-605 (see upthread). My guess is that this is actually giving the money to these particular sites, presumably because they've met all the requirements to do so.

Guy [I have lots of experience designing/selling off-grid AE systems, some using EVs but don't own one. Local trips are by foot, bike and/or rapid transit].

The 'best' is the enemy of 'good enough'.Copper shot, not Silver bullets.

Since the last update (5/31/17, noted upthread), several of the opening dates have been pushed back, and there's been a noticeable slowing of the pace of openings. Not sure why, as the money's been allocated to most of these. Torrance (upgrade from no-retail to full retail, pushed back from July) and Fremont are the only two now scheduled to open in mid-17, with San Ramon pushed back (again) to Q3, Ontario and Woodside to late 2017, and the always 'in-commissioning' status but never commissioned (as full retail; it does operate as a dem/val site, but only for Hyundai) Cal State LA is now pushed back to 2018.

I sent an email to CAFCP telling them that CSULA's status was a joke, given that it's been listed as 'in commissioning' for over a year now. Got a nice email back from their head of outreach explaining the issues at the site, but that didn't change my opinion that they should de-list it until there's actually some real prospect of it opening within a month or two, as I think such repeated schedule delays without any change in status decrease the site's credibility (much as has happened with Tesla's schedule claims).

Guy [I have lots of experience designing/selling off-grid AE systems, some using EVs but don't own one. Local trips are by foot, bike and/or rapid transit].

The 'best' is the enemy of 'good enough'.Copper shot, not Silver bullets.

Wanting to get some exercise late yesterday afternoon, I decided to ride my bike out to San Ramon and check out the new H2 station at Toyota's regional office. Prior to this one opening, only True Zero had any stations in the Bay Area, and at least the one in Hayward charges $16.78/kg, which is high compared to the Air Products-owned stations in SoCal that charge $9.99/kg. AFAIA this is the first station in California to use LH2 delivery, which is supposed to reduce transportation costs, so I was curious to see if this station, owned by Air Liquide (like Air Products an industrial gas company) would be less expensive. The station's right on Norris Canyon Road, a double-sided dispenser with 350 bar on the north side and 700 bar on the south side. But the price is $20.16/kg.! They've got to be kidding! While at that price the Mirai can still get free fuel for all 36k miles of a 3 year lease, a Clarity (60k miles on a 3-yr. lease) will have to start paying for fuel after about 48-50k miles.

More importantly, the window of opportunity for consumer H2/FCEVs in California has now narrowed considerably, with the advent of the 310 mile range Tesla Model 3 for $44k base MSRP. While real world range, especially in cold conditions, will still likely be less than a Mirai (312 miles EPA) ,the SC network is considerably more extensive than the H2 fueling network inside the state, and also outside it where FCEVs currently can't venture. The Mirai's a much less compelling car, having only four seats, pedestrian performance, a design that puts off many people, and a limited trunk space without folding rear seats. Comparably equipped the Model 3's more like $50k, and an FCEV gets double the CA. rebate bringing the cars closer together in price, but unless someone simply has no way to charge the Model 3 at low cost locally, the Model 3's a more useful car. Now that Tesla has begun to construct SCs in urban areas specifically to cater for apartment/condo dwellers in that situation, that advantage will dwindle. The sole other advantage the Mirai now has it that it can be leased (as it should be), and until Tesla offers lease deals on the Model 3 we won't know how it compares in that area.

The Clarity's a better deal than the Mirai, offering 5 seats, 20k miles/yr. lease vice 12k, 366 miles of EPA range, better performance and somewhat less off-putting looks, but its trunk is even more restricted than the Mirai's. So, for H2/FCEVs to have any hope of succeeding here, they have to increase the rate of installations of stations, especially those that allow access to more areas of the state, and they must also bring the prices of H2 and the cars down substantially, and improve their performance. Both the Mirai and Clarity are fully-equipped compared to the base Model 3, so they can be de-contented by several thousand dollars, but they really need to up their game performance-wise at the same time. And H2 still needs to be brought down to where the price/kg. is approximately double the price of gas/gallon for it to compete.

Guy [I have lots of experience designing/selling off-grid AE systems, some using EVs but don't own one. Local trips are by foot, bike and/or rapid transit].

The 'best' is the enemy of 'good enough'.Copper shot, not Silver bullets.

GRA wrote:So, for H2/FCEVs to have any hope of succeeding here, they have to increase the rate of installations of stations, especially those that allow access to more areas of the state, and they must also bring the prices of H2 and the cars down substantially, and improve their performance. Both the Mirai and Clarity are fully-equipped compared to the base Model 3, so they can be de-contented by several thousand dollars, but they really need to up their game performance-wise at the same time. And H2 still needs to be brought down to where the price/kg. is approximately double the price of gas/gallon for it to compete.

When you have lost GRA, you might as well give up.

Was all the time spent on H2 worth it ? I still regret the time I spent on HD-DVD.

GRA wrote:So, for H2/FCEVs to have any hope of succeeding here, they have to increase the rate of installations of stations, especially those that allow access to more areas of the state, and they must also bring the prices of H2 and the cars down substantially, and improve their performance. Both the Mirai and Clarity are fully-equipped compared to the base Model 3, so they can be de-contented by several thousand dollars, but they really need to up their game performance-wise at the same time. And H2 still needs to be brought down to where the price/kg. is approximately double the price of gas/gallon for it to compete.

When you have lost GRA, you might as well give up.

Was all the time spent on H2 worth it ? I still regret the time I spent on HD-DVD.

I'm not sure who you're saying has lost. I have lost nothing, as I don't care which ZEV tech succeeds. Now, the FCEV manufacturers and H2 suppliers may have lost, and if they don't get a move on I believe that will be the case here, which was always going to be a tough market given our low gas prices - I've always said their odds for success were much better in Europe and Asia where gas prices were higher. I think they've got at most another two years here to have a chance, or BEVs and their infrastructure will have built an insurmountable lead. In other regions the situation is more favorable to them.

Guy [I have lots of experience designing/selling off-grid AE systems, some using EVs but don't own one. Local trips are by foot, bike and/or rapid transit].

The 'best' is the enemy of 'good enough'.Copper shot, not Silver bullets.

These are the remaining 7 out of 16 stations that had previously been selected under GFO 15-605 for development, and now the money is actually authorized (see previous post for the other 9). Equilon is Shell, and all 7 will be in Norcal at their stations, 5 in the Bay Area: 3 in S.F., 1 in Berkeley and 1 in Walnut Creek. The remaining two stations will be in the Sacramento area. These stations won't complete before 2018 at the earliest.

Guy [I have lots of experience designing/selling off-grid AE systems, some using EVs but don't own one. Local trips are by foot, bike and/or rapid transit].

The 'best' is the enemy of 'good enough'.Copper shot, not Silver bullets.